


a sweet light in the dark

by gedsparrowhawk (FaceChanger)



Category: Black Sails
Genre: Flint is a good dad even if his kid is a handful, Gen, Kid!Fic, i had tagged this as fluffy but apparently ppl are crying idk man
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 23:01:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8819551
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FaceChanger/pseuds/gedsparrowhawk
Summary: Penelope loves the house, although sometimes her mother complains that it’s too small and too isolated. She loves the bookshelves with the books that her father reads her as bedtime stories when he is here, and she loves the fields around house, especially the small plot that her mother has dedicated as Penelope’s garden, where she waters wildflowers and weeds.
Or: Miranda is pregnant when they flee London, and their daughter grows quick and wild on New Providence.





	

**Author's Note:**

> also posted on [tumblr](http://gedsparrowhawk.tumblr.com/post/154342915461/a-sweet-light-in-the-dark)

_“Thou are come, Telemachus, a sweet light in the dark; methought I should see thee never again after thou hadst gone in thy ship to Pylos.”_

_The Odyssey, Book XVI_

 

* * *

 

Her earliest memory is of her father.

In it, he sits at the kitchen table, outlined by the dim, warm light of the oil lamp on the counter. The sheath of a sword lies on the table, the battered leather almost blending into the wood. He holds the sword itself in his hands, going over the blade of it with a cloth, again and again in a mesmerizing rhythm. She watches, caught in the doorway.

He pauses after a moment, turns, and smiles at her in a way that her mother tells her he smiles only ever for her. “Penelope, what are you doing out of bed?”

“Had a bad dream,” she mumbles.

She waits for him to put the sword down. However young she is in the memory, she knows better than to approach her father while he still holds a weapon. He would never hurt her, but somehow, he seems different with a blade in his hands, as if there is a slightly different man who inhabits his skin.

Only after the sword is on the table alongside its sheath does she run to him. He sweeps her up into a bear hug and settles her on his lap.

“Tell me about your dream.”

She shakes her head.

“All right, you don’t have to. It wasn’t real, my girl. It was just a dream.” He sighs deeply and rubs his hand on her back in soothing circles. She can hear his voice where her ear is pressed up against his chest. “I’m here.”

“D’you ever have bad dreams?” she asks.

“Of course,” her father answers. “And when I do, your mother hugs me until I fall back asleep, like I hug you until you fall asleep.”

“What do you dream about?”

Her father is silent for a long moment. “I dream that I’m in front of my crew, and I’ve forgotten my breeches.”

Penelope giggles. “That’s silly!”

He smiles. “It is when I wake up! But when I’m dreaming it, it’s quite terrifying.”

She doesn’t say anything more for a while, just lets him just hold her, until the terror of the dream fades in the evenness of his breathing and the steadiness of his warmth against her.

“I dreamed,” she says at last, “there was a storm and there was a monster and it eated up your boat.”

Her father hums, deep in the cavity of his chest, somewhere near where she can feel his heart beating. “Oh, that is scary. But don’t worry, darling. I’m scarier than all the monsters in the sea.”

“Even big sharks?” she asks.

“Especially big sharks,” he says.

“But Mr. Gates!” She takes a deep breath, “Mr. Gates said that he once saw a shark so big that it was the size of a ship and it eated up a whole, whole school of fish and a octopus too!”

Her father chuckles. “Is that what this is about? Mr. Gates has been telling you scary stories?”

Penelope nods.

“Well then, next time you see Mr. Gates, which may not be too soon, mind, ask him who is scarier when they’re angry. Your father or a shark.”

“Okay.”

In the kitchen, wrapped up in the warm light of the lamp, she trusts her father to chase away her nightmares. She trusts that he is invincible, stronger than the sea and everything that hides within it’s depths.

She falls asleep again to a sailor’s song that her father sings under his breath. It isn’t quite fit for a young girl’s lullaby, but that bothers neither of them.

_“Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest…”_

 

* * *

 

On a hot June day, when she is six years old, her mother sets her to cleaning the house, a slow and tedious business, but necessary. Her mother is out in the fields, working the farm, and her father is away, off at sea, so Penelope is alone in the house with the too-big broom and the cloth to wipe the dust away. It isn’t hard work because her mother is fastidious about keeping the house neat, but it is enough to keep a young girl busy for the day.

She moves from room to room, singing quietly – a sea chanty her father taught her, and then one half of a duet her mother likes, and then just nonsense words that she makes up herself.

The windows in the house are all thrown open and sunlight streams in. Penelope loves the house, although sometimes her mother complains that it’s too small and too isolated. She loves the bookshelves with the books that her father reads her as bedtime stories when he is here, and she loves the fields around house, especially the small plot that her mother has dedicated as Penelope’s garden, where she waters wildflowers and weeds.

Sometimes, when her father sees that, he smiles strangely and tells her he loves her.

Still, it doesn’t take long for the breeze that flutters the curtains to change from refreshing to annoying, and the sunlight from pleasant to oppressive. By the time she is done with the bedrooms and the kitchens, she is hot and bored and decides that she deserves a rest. She leans the broom against the table and pours herself a glass of water, carefully holding the pitcher with both hands. It’s almost too heavy to lift by herself, but she manages.

The moments that she has alone in the house aren’t rare, exactly. Her father spends most of his time at sea, leaving her and her mother alone, and often enough her mother sets her at lessons in the house. But for the most part she is a good girl and does as she is told, which means she does not go looking at the stacks of molding papers on her father’s desk by the window, or at the portrait her mother keeps facing the wall.

There’s a spark of contrariness to her mood today, however. She walks over to the portrait, curiosity and boredom getting the better of her. She has some vague idea that it wasn’t always kept like this, and that there was some argument between her parents about it not too long ago, but she wasn’t paying attention to the details at the time. She sticks her finger between the top of the painting and the wall, levering it back so it tips into the other hand that she has waiting to catch it.

It’s a picture of her mother, who she recognizes instantly, with another man that is not her father in a tricorner hat. Her mother is dressed more elegantly than Penelope has ever seen her, and it suits her. She looks happy and pretty and less careworn than the woman that Penelope loves.

Penelope tries to come around to the front of the painting. She is standing on her mother’s side and she wants to inspect the strange man in the picture further. The shape of his face seems familiar somehow, and the color of his hair is a slightly darker echo of her own. As she moves, though, her hold on the back of the painting slips, and it crashes to the floor.

The sound of it echoes throughout the house.

The painting is unharmed, but she can hear her mother running in from the field.

“Penelope! Penelope, is everything alright?” her mother calls.

“Yes, Mama!” she calls back, hoping her mother will leave and not see that she’s been snooping.

She has no such luck as her mother enters the room.

Miranda stops in the doorway, looking from her daughter to the fallen painting, and she looks stricken for a moment.

Penelope herself feels tears welling up, sudden guilt at being caught in the wrong. “I was just trying to look,” she hiccups.

Her mother hesitates for a split second, and then crosses to Penelope and crouches beside her. “Hush, baby, don’t cry, don’t cry. I’m not angry with you.” She kisses away the tears that have leaked out of Penelope’s eyes. “Do you know who is in this portrait?”

Penelope nods uncertainly and points at the likeness of her mother. “That’s you.”

“Yes, that’s me.” Her mother points at the man in the portrait. “Do you know who he is?”

Penelope shakes her head. “No.”

Miranda sighs and strokes Penelope’s hair. “Your,” she stumbles for a second, “James and I had hoped to wait and tell you this when you were older, but I supposed you have to know at some point.” She pulls Penelope into a one-armed hug. “His name was Thomas Hamilton, and he was my husband. He was James’s,” again a small hesitation, “best friend. And he was your father.”

Penelope shakes her head, “No, James is my father!”

Miranda smiles sadly. “Yes, he is, but Thomas was also your father.”

Penelope’s brow furrows. “I have two fathers?”

“Yes, my dear, you do. Look, you have his hair and his eyes, do you see?”

Penelope does see: it’s why the face in the portrait looked so strangely familiar. A giddy happiness rises in her, like she feels on Christmas morning. Another father. One who could be here when James is away and read her bed time stories every night and make sure that her mother never looks so sad and tired. She reaches out to touch his painted face.

“Where is he?”

Her mother kisses the top of Penelope’s hair and her hug tightens. “He died, sweetheart. Thomas died a year after you were born.”

The happiness dies, dissipating like low tide, leaving Penelope empty and disappointed and angry at whatever took away this father that she has only just discovered.

“But, Penelope,” her mother continues. “Oh, my sweet darling girl, he would have loved you more than anything in the world. He would have spoiled you rotten with presents, and he would have given you sweets when he thought I wasn’t looking, and he would have played with you all day long. He would have loved your little garden so much, and he would have been right there with you, watering the weeds and wildflowers.”

Penelope is silent, looking at the face of this father she will never know. Then, without warning, she turns to her mother and clutches her dress, sobbing with all the force of her little body. “It’s not fair!” she wails. “It’s not fair that he’s not here! He’s my father, and I want him!”

Miranda gathers her up and stands, carrying her away from the portrait and into the sunlight outside. “I know, sweetheart. I know. I wish he was here too.”

Outside, beside Penelope’s garden, Miranda holds her while she weeps.

 

* * *

 

For the rest of the summer, Penelope has a new imaginary friend whose personality is filled in by James and Miranda’s stories. He’s a dashing knight, with blue green eyes and straw blond hair, and his name is Thomas.

 

* * *

 

“Move it, kid,” someone says to her, as they shove past. She jumps out of the way, clutching onto her hat, apology on her lips, but they’ve already gone.

It is busy by the sea. The ships anchored out in the harbor dance a little on the waves, and the beech crawls with activity as some pirates unload cargo and others load the boats up with supplies. There are pockets of idleness, but these are more dangerous. Where people are busy, they won’t spare a glance for the girl dressed as a boy making her way as quickly as she can toward the water.

She thinks her disguise might be good enough. She’s tucked her hair up under a cap and traded the boy who lives two farms away her favorite wooden horse for a set of his clothes. She looks passably like a boy like this, especially if she keeps her face sort of scowling. It won’t fool her father for an instant, but none of the rest of the crew know her well.

She just needs to get onto the ship and then hide until it’s too late for her father to send her home.

She does feel bad about sneaking away from her mother. She’s sure her mother will be worrying, searching the house since dawn and then going to ask the neighbors if they have seen Penelope, and she wonders how long it will take her mother to notice the note on the bookshelf where Penelope explained in her best penmanship that she is going to sea with her father and there is nothing her mother can do about it. She’s glad that she won’t be seeing her mother for several weeks at least, because it should give Miranda some time to calm down.

There’s a boat just getting loaded with supplies, and Penelope recognizes Billy in it. She’s seen him from afar a few times, and she knows her father thinks highly of him, but she doubts he will recognize her. She runs down to the water edge, weaving through the crowd, her feet throwing up puffs of sand.

She skids to a stop. The boat is just about to push off from shore.

“Wait!” she calls.

The men stop and look at her, curious at the strange boy who has just halted them. She shifts. This is the part of the plan that she hasn’t thought out as well.

“I have a message,” she says, and then hesitates, trying to remember a name that will gain her access to the ship. “For Joji.”

There is a long pause, and in it she contemplates everything that could go wrong with this particular plan. They could ask her what the message is, or who it is from, to which she won’t have an answer. Joji could not be on the boat. They could simply be suspicious of the strange boy they have never seen.

Billy shrugs. “All right, climb in. He’s on board already.”

Penelope clambers into the jolly boat. She grins nervously at the men around her and they grin back, friendly enough. Billy clasps a hand on her shoulder. “Push off, boys, let’s go.”

As they slide off the sand, the men each take up an oar. Crouching in the bow, Penelope watches them pull at each stroke, fascinated by the way the boat bounces on the surf and the way that none of the men seem to mind. It doesn’t make her feel ill, like she feared it would. It’s just strangely exhilarating.

It seems strange to think that this is her first time on a boat in the ocean. She was born on the island and has lived her entire life in the interior, if not quite away from the smell of the sea then at least far enough away that she is more familiar with the roll of the farmland than with the waves. Her mother does not fear the sea, but she does not bring Penelope to it, and Penelope has not asked. Yet, the sea has haunted her childhood, weaving itself into the gifts her father brings and the stories he tells and sitting at the secret heart of both her fears and dreams.

If it is hard work for the men to bring the row boat alongside the _Walrus_ , it does not seem so to Penelope, and they are there within minutes. Billy shows her how to clamber up the sides while the men begin to hand up supplies. Years of climbing trees after birds’ nests serve her well, and she is on the deck within moments.

It is busier than she thought, and she stares around, unsure where to go or how to act. Billy looks at her and then clasps her shoulder again. “Wait here. I’ll fetch Joji for you.” She nods, and he heads off.

The moment he turns his back on her, she begins moving. She has spied the door that she is sure leads below decks, and she takes off toward it. The boat is fairly steady at anchor, but still her footing is less sure than it is on dry land, and she almost stumbles once or twice. Nevertheless, she makes it to the door well enough, and slips inside.

She gets lost below decks almost as soon as she enters. It is dark and close, and she has no idea where it is she is trying to go. She wanders aimlessly, with the only real goal of keeping out of people’s way while working her way deeper into the belly of the ship. Her plan is beginning to seem more and more foolhardy. She doesn’t know how long until the ship will leave the harbor. Her mother will be worried. Her father will be furious. To top it all, she hasn’t eaten since the piece of bread that she stole when she sneaked out early this morning, and her hunger is getting increasingly persistent.

She turns a corner and runs directly into someone coming the other way.

“Well, hello!” She recognizes her father’s quartermaster immediately, of course, and her mind helpfully supplies one of her father’s curses that she’s not supposed to know. “Who are you?”

“I have a message for Joji!” she squeaks out, and it hardly sounds convincing to her ears.

“Then what are you doing snooping around below?” Mr. Gates asks. He doesn’t sound particularly angry, more amused than anything, but that does little to assuage Penelope’s nerves.

“I got lost?” she offers.

“Aye,” says Mr. Gates. “Well, young man, better bring you to the Captain and get this sorted out. What do you say to _that_?”

Penelope scowls miserably. Protesting won’t help her case, and if she is going to be thrown off the boat and have to make her way home, she might as well do it with her father’s knowledge. Mr. Gates takes ahold her of upper arm, not hard but firmly enough to make sure that she doesn’t slip away, and begins steering her through the ship.

Once, when she was little, she thinks she used to see Mr. Gates fairly often. She’s not sure why it stopped, but he clearly doesn’t recognize her now.

“What’s your name, boy?” he asks as they walk.

“Outis,” she answers, “Outis Hamilton.” At the very least, she hopes her father will appreciate the joke.

Gates eyes her curiously but doesn’t comment. They reach a door, and he knocks sharply, and then pushes in without waiting for an answer. “Caught a boy snooping around,” he says, pulling her in behind her. The captain’s cabin is large and well-lit by windows that look out across the harbor. Her father sits at a desk, reviewing some papers. His hair is tied back and he looks far grimmer than she is used to seeing him. She shrinks behind Mr. Gates. “Says his name is Outis Hamilton.”

Her father looks up at that and catches sight of Penelope trying to hide. For a moment, he looks genuinely surprised and not entirely displeased, before his disapproval catches up with him and his expression clouds over. “That’s not a boy, Mr. Gates,” he says. Mr. Gates looks down at Penelope in surprise, and she looks at the floor guiltily. “That’s my daughter.”

“Penelope?” Mr. Gates asks. Penelope nods unhappily. “I haven’t seen you since you were this high!” Mr. Gates exclaims. “Look how you’ve grown! What on earth were you doing?”

“Mr. Gates.” Her father’s voice is cutting, and Mr. Gates stops abruptly. “If you would not mind leaving us for a moment.”

Mr. Gate’s straightens and nods, looking between the two of them. As he leaves, he winks at Penelope.

Father and daughter stand for a long moment, neither of them saying anything.

“Take the hat off; it’s far too big for you,” Flint says, at last.

Penelope obliges hurriedly, and her hair falls down around her shoulders. “I’m sorry!” she begins, but he cuts her off.

“Does your mother know about this?”

Penelope stares at her shoes. “She does by now. I left a note.”

“A note, Jesus.” Flint puts his head in hands and looks at the desk for a moment and then back at her. “Do you have any idea how much trouble you are in, young lady?” he asks.

She nods and twists the hat in her hands.

“What were you thinking, Penelope! That you could just stow away and be part of the ship? Your mother would have my head, and a pirate ship is no place for a girl your age! These are not nice men. Most of them are honorable, and none of them would dare touch my daughter, but they are dangerous none the less. And pirate raids can go wrong!” He looks at her, waiting for signs of understanding.

She scuffs her shoe against the floor. “It’s not fair,” she says, petulantly. “It’s not fair. You just disappear for weeks at a time, and you leave me and mother at home, and I don’t understand why you can’t just stay at home with us! I miss you!” She can feel the pressure building up behind her face that means she’s close to crying, and she hates it. Her words turn angrier as she goes. “You get to go off and have all the fun, and what if you don’t come home? So I wanted to come with you and protect you. And you never take me with you! I wanted to see the sea, and I wanted to prove to you that I was brave too!”

Her father makes a choked sound. He stands from behind his desk, and she flinches away, expecting anger. Instead, he crosses the room to crouch in front of her, and pulls her into a hug. “Darling, I know you’re brave, but it isn’t your job to protect me.”

She wraps her arms around his neck. At eight years old, she’s getting almost too big for him to pick her up, but he does anyway and carries her to his desk, where he sits her on his lap. “It’s not fair,” she mumbles again.

He strokes her hair before speaking again. “Your mother doesn’t like that I go off either,” he says. “She calls it playing pirate. We had such a fight after you were born. She wanted me to stay.”

“Why didn’t you?”

The side of Flint’s mouth quirks into a sad smile. “I love you very, very much,” he tells her. “I love you more than I have loved almost anything in my life. But England took something from you, my dear. From you, and me, and your mother.”

“Thomas,” Penelope says.

Flint nods. “Thomas. And for that – for a blood price for that, I will lay the wealth of all of Britain at your feet.”

Penelope considers this. “But I don’t want the wealth of Britain,” she says. “I want you.”

Her father takes a long, deep breath as if something in her words has cut him to the quick. He doesn’t answer.

Eventually, Penelope untangles herself from him and stands up. “Can I come with you then?” she asks, hopefully.

His eyes glint with a flash of amusement. “Absolutely not! I am going to take you out on deck and introduce you one by one to the crew and tell them,” he adopted his captain’s growl, “ _this is my rotten daughter Penelope, and if you ever let her aboard again without my express permission, I will keelhaul you_.” Penelope giggled, and he pinched her arm gently. “And then, I will send you straight home to your mother, where you will explain everything, and no doubt be punished for the rest of the week, as befits runaway little girls.”

He stands up and steers her gently out the door. The prospect of facing her mother is still frightening, but the heaviness of her father’s hand on her back is comforting.

“Outis Hamilton,” he mutters, under his breath. “If I wasn’t so angry with you, I think I would be quite proud.”

 

* * *

 

She is nine years old, barefoot, and waiting in the surf for her father. Her hair is bleached almost white by the sun, and her skin is tanned nut-brown. Her mother, waiting a little bit behind her, has despaired of controlling her when they are at the harbor. Penelope runs wild in the town, mingling easily with the pirates, secure in the reputation of her father.

At home, her mother has begun to teach her politics, and she has taken to it like a fish to water, delighting in the endless opportunities for questions that it affords. She knows, moreover, that in doing so she makes herself more like Thomas, and she thirsts after the chance to be more like the father that she lost.

Flint’s ship is coming in today; they can already see it just on the horizon. She is here to greet him, of course, but also to remind him of the what he has sworn to them.

He is chasing the tale of a Spaniard and the promise of treasure. He has sworn that with this latest voyage he will hold the final key to the puzzle. One last attack after this, a final battle in the war, and then he will have a fortune to lay at her feet, and they will be able to live free as they can from the long shadow that England has cast over their lives.

The part of her that is too cynical for a nine year old thinks bitterly that Spanish gold is not the wealth of the British empire, but she knows far better than to mention that to her father.

The portrait of Miranda and Thomas Hamilton hangs on the wall of their home now, and this morning as they left for town, Penelope whispered a promise to her other father. She is too old for imaginary friends now, but she still likes to think that anything she whispers to the portrait goes straight to his ears in heaven.

One day, when she is older and stronger and has learned how to wield a sword or perhaps pen of her own, she will set out to avenge the memory of Thomas Hamilton. She will write the story of a principled man, destroyed by his enemies, remembered well only by his family, who were themselves cast out and exiled for the crime of having loved him. She thinks it will make a good story.

She thinks, also, that she holds a power over Captain Flint, and that if she asked him to bring the British to their knees before her he would do so. But she does not want that. When she whispered to the portrait this morning, she promised that she would bring Flint home, and lay him to rest. She knows that under Captain Flint is a gentle man named James McGraw, and she would see her father be that man again.

She is nine years old, buffeted by the sea-breeze, waiting for her father, and she is a pure good thing, like a bit of polished sea glass, made of a joy all three of her parents once shared and the bright way that sunlight glances off the waves.

 


End file.
